The Broad: an “airy” lighting project

The Broad is a new art museum located in Los Angeles. It houses post-war and contemporary art and is home to nearly 2,000 works.

Architects Diller Scofidio + Renfro worked in collaboration with Arup on the design of this building, following a “veil-and-vault” concept. This concept removes the normal museum storage area transforming it into a heavy mass always in view. So the vault is surrounded by the “veil”, an airy structure that spans across the gallery providing filtered natural daylight.

The lighting project

The top floor gallery is illuminated by expansive north-facing skylights and a fully-shaded east wall. The skylights allow filtered daylight in while preventing direct sunlight. In this way, the natural daylight create a lucency right through the 23 foot depth of the upper gallery.

For better functionality, Arup proposed seamless integration of sprinklers, sensors, shading devices, conduit and electric lighting into the architecture.
Daylight levels in the galleries vary with the season, time of day and weather, altering the ambience of gallery interiors on each occasion.

Some exhibitions may require reduced light levels, for conservation reasons or for display reasons. Lower daylight levels can be achieved by the use of blackout shades.
Also, for the electric lighting, Arup assisted with the development of custom track mounted LED wallwashers. These can illuminate uniformly the gallery walls when daylight levels are insufficient.

Energy savings strategies

The architectural “veil” is an external shading device, daylight harvesting, occupancy-based control of lighting, demand control ventilation and the use of low-energy ultrasonic humidifiers. The building’s energy use assisted in the goal of achieving a LEED Gold rating.